The Grand Chamber of the European Court announced the judgment on Perinçek v. Switzerland. The judgment defines that the Swiss legislation was not properly applied against Perinçek, in other words, Switzerland has violated the right to freedom of expression against Doğu Perinçek. However, Armenia’s demands as a third party are met in the sense that the expressions that can somehow question the fact of genocide are eliminated from the judgment.
Note that the Turkish nationalist politician Perinçek Doğu has denied the fact of the Armenian Genocide in Switzerland and was sentenced to prison. He had appealed to the ECHR, which has satisfied Doğu’s claim, mentioning in the records that a restriction of freedom of expression was applied against the plaintiff. The Swiss Justice Minister announced in March that Switzerland will apply to the ECHR with a counter-claims to defend the country’s interests. Esentially, today, the ECHR made a compromise judgment for all the parties were satisfied with the judgment. After the announcement of the judgment, Doğu Perinçek considered the Court’s judgment historical and announced, “Knowing the European traditions on Freedom of Expression, another decision was not expected. Our confidence in the European court became firmer today.” One of the members of the Armenian delegation on Perinçek v. Switzerland, human rights defender of the international level, Geoffrey Robertson, noted that this is actually a good judgment for Armenia.
Commenting of the judgment, he said, “The European Court decided that the Armenians have the right for their historical past to be respected and their dignity restored. This judgment fully means that people can be convicted of the genocide denial.” According to Robertson, simply the Swiss prosecutors have applied the legislation against Perinçek wrongly. “In convicting Perinçek, their mistake was that Perinçek was the most common provoker, his statements were senseless and worthless, these statements could not say anything to a reasonable person, hence, the European Court considered it wrong to convict him for it.”
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Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
